Sunday, January 17, 2010

By any measure, and despite the 2007 victory of a nationalist government in Scotland’s pocket-money-parliament, Scotland continues to be a colony of England.

A former post presents the compelling historical evidence for this claim.

What follows is a detailed description of how this colonial system works, divided into (1) the problem itself, and (2) the means of control the British state uses to keep Scotland in this unique constitutional configuration we call the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

The Problem

1. Scottish troops continuing to die in Britain’s wars.

2. The continuing recruitment to the British army of Scottish economic conscripts from some of the most socially deprived areas of Scotland, direct from high streets, schools and colleges.

3. The complete lack of control the Scottish Government has on immigration to Scotland, regardless of whether it wishes to increase or decrease it.

4. The continuing pillage of Scotland’s oil reserves to prop up the morally and financially bankrupt British State, with not a penny returned to Scotland.

5. The prolonging of Glasgow’s social deprivation to maintain a benefit- and Labour-dependent voting core in Scotland. Middle class voters don’t vote Labour. This has been Labour’s policy since it first assumed UK power in its minority administration of 1922, when it also quietly dropped its long held demand for Scottish Home Rule.

6. The complete lack of Scottish Government control of thresholds for income tax, corporation tax, VAT, stamp duty and capital gains tax levied within Scotland, all contributing to support the British state. All tax thresholds and levels are set by the UK Govt to suit the economic conditions in the south of England. Should the Scottish Government implement the Calman Commission proposal and vary only the income tax rate in isolation – leaving aside all other taxes – it would have devastating economic consequences.

7. The continued and growing presence of Britain nuclear submarine bases in Scottish lochs, close to major population centres, with no accountability to the Scottish Parliament or people.

9. The continuing imposition of UK customs duties (tariffs) on all goods imported into Scotland. This prevents the Scottish Government from establishing and fostering any domestic industry, the standard practice of all industrial nations when establishing their native manufacturing bases - including the UK and US - despite all the free trade rhetoric since achieving economic supremacy. In Scotland's case, the goal will be to create 21st century industries to replace the healthy industrial base that Margaret Thatcher was so successful at destroying.

10. The continuing UK imposition of low alcohol prices on the Scottish population - despite attempts by the Scottish Government to combat this practice and its appalling social consequences - to keep Scots who are out of work dull-witted enough to keep voting Labour - the party that promises to keep their unemployment and disability benefits flowing.

How Colonial Control is Maintained

1. Routine rendering Top Secret of any UK Cabinet documents or committee precedings that might inform Scots of their situation. Routine blocking of any freedom of information requests that may expose the entrenched hostility of key British government ministers to Scotland.

2. The continued status of the UK Supreme Court as the highest court of appeal for Scots civil law.

3. The UK’s Anti-Scottish Propaganda Office, commonly known as the Scotland Office, whose £7.2 million budget is used to convince Scots that any economic successes are due to the UK Govt, and to discredit both the Scottish Govt and Parliament. The Scottish Office Minister has consistently refused to account for his time or how he spends his massive budget.

4. British TV broadcasters – including the commercial channels but especially the BBC - starving Scotland of investment, leading to a minimization of Scottish content on Scottish television. This could easily be corrected by legislation to define their broadcasting mandates, but will never happen.

5. Continuing Unionist control of Scotland’s print media. In spite of their patriotic names, notasingleprintmediaoutlet in Scotland reports the work of the nationalist Scottish Government impartially, let alone favourably. The not-so-subtle purpose of the strong anti-Scottish Govt and anti-Parliament message is to make ordinary Scots conclude that their own parliament is a failure, and that the UK Parliament is somehow superior, despite overwhelming recent evidence that it is corrupt from top to bottom.

6. Conspicuous placement of British military facilities and contracts in Scotland to create the idea that Scottish jobs depend on the continued goodwill and patronage of the British military establishment.

7. Rich and poor Scots alike all paying £142.50 a year (currently about €160 or US$215) for a British TV licence, going exclusively to the London-centric BBC, which habitually refers to Scots as ‘they’ and ‘them’, and returns less than a third of these funds to Scottish programming. This is effectively a UK poll tax on Scots to pay for their acculturation as Britons, with little return on investment to Scotland.

10. Continued control of the Scottish electoral system, issuing whitewash reports of any electoral fraud cases in Scotland that have favourable results for Unionist parties.

11. Periodically wheeling out celebrities and minor sports personalities to state their opposition to independence in an effort to sway Scottish public opinion. British media coercion of Scottish sports stars to proclaim their Scottish-but-British identity.

12. Unionist political parties in the Scottish Parliament regularly combining to vote down key Scottish legislation, despite their supposed ‘ideological differences’ and their parties' subsequent acknowledgement of the legislation's merit. Knowing however the popularity of the nationalist Scottish Govt, they ensure they pass the annual Scottish budget to avoid forcing an election and losing further seats.

The purpose of these methods is to constantly reinforce the idea in the minds of ordinary Scots that Scotland is a dependent region rather than a self-sufficient country, and that we cannot govern ourselves because we are either too small, too poor or too stupid to do so. (B)

This in spite of Scots having at various times governed much of the British Empire, acting as founding fathers and early national leaders for nations all over the globe, having been UK Prime Minister on a number of occasions, and today managing major multinational corporations and NGOs around the world.

43 comments:

You've missed out the most pernicious and effective method of colonisation, the colonisation of people's minds.

Once people start to think of the colonising culture as superior and their own culture as inferior then they will police themselves and slap down any attempt at independence or defence of their own culture without any intervention from the colonising power.

It's a situation which has happened time and time again across the world.

The repeated unionist mantra of, "We're too small, poor and stupid to run our own country", is a prime example.

Of course, that is the ultimate message the UK propaganda machine is driving at, and what most of the second list of points aim to achieve. Do you mind if I add this at some point?

When you read the late-colonial history of so many countries in Africa and Asia you read of Britain using this over and over again. The only time it wasn't used was India, when they swapped 'small' for 'too sprawling and divided'.

Can you explain number 10 of 'The Problem'? How are alcohal prices kept low? And what is wrong with that? I mean, in Spain booze are cheap but they don't have an appalling 'social cost' so I'm interested in this one. It seems to me that the problems that lead to abuse of drinking and anything else are economic and the drinking simply a symptom. By attacking the syptoms we let a pernicious distribution of wealth off the hook, no?

That aside, what about the downplaying of 'Scots' as a language? I mean from what I remember Ulster Scots got more funding than Scots itself from London government..

An issue that something can be done about is the cost of the Scottish Office. I think the party has tried to get some accountability. I think we really should scrutinise this more on the blogs and put pressure on there!

You also asked a good question – why does Spain not have a drinking problem like Scotland if it too has cheap booze?

I’ve always thought that the answer lay not in that we are a nation of alcoholics, pre-disposed to early drink-sodden death. Neither is it just about the price of alcohol, but also about the weather, the latitude and the economy.

There are four significant differences between Scotland and Spain: Spain does not have our crap weather, our long winters, our short winter days, or another country keeping it poor, driving down its self esteem and keeping large sectors of the population on welfare.

With our bad weather, long winters and short winter days, Scotland has more in common with Norway and Russia. Russia too has an economy that is struggling to breath. Both countries have wrestled with the problem of excessive alcohol consumption and come to the same conclusion – higher prices.

I think you are right to make the link between alcohol consumption and the economy. There can be no doubt that financial desperation and sense of hopelessness lead people to drown their sorrows in the bottle. Fair enough.

But Russia and Norway also have some power to fix their economies, inasmuch as states have that power in these globalized days. We do not even have that power. It’s becoming increasingly clear to more Scots with every passing day that the cause of most of our economic problems is the dead hand of Union locked onto Scotland’s throat. We can’t change our weather or our latitude, but we CAN get rid of the Union and start to fix our economy.

While we are doing that, I’m not saying we stop people drinking, only that we reduce people’s booze intake without banning it. The goal is to stop people drinking themselves into oblivion, and stop them harming themselves and others.

Cheap alcohol is the new opiate for the masses. In England it keeps the working class dull witted, violent and poor, and willing participants in the maintenance of England’s age-old system of class privilege.

When imposed on Scotland, it becomes a colonial policy, lowering our self esteem, reducing our effective IQ, and deflecting our gaze from Scotland’s real purpose, which is to maintain the myth of British world power, and to keep London in the style to which it is accustomed.

[i]Scotland’s real purpose, which is to maintain the myth of British world power, and to keep London in the style to which it is accustomed.[/i]

Great sentence! That's exactly what's happening here... I've always felt that the Scottish Zeitgeist is one of insecurity due to - on the one hand - being proud Scots and on the other hand being forced into thinking that we're useless getting out of poverty and hopeless at governing ourselves; just a side show to our cousin England.

This is clear when you see a Scot do well - all of a sudden s/he is British; if s/he does badly then they're Scottish.

Opposed to when an English person does well - they are super-English (probably get a CBE/ Knighthood - remember the winning Ashes Cricket Team!?!); if they don't do well then not much is said except that the other team was lucky because of a bias referee or there were bad circumstances to contend with...

There is an underlying arrogance of superiority in the South East of England which negatively affects the nations and regions of the UK.

One last thing: Sometimes it's difficult for people to understand that Unionist Scottish politicians are actually lying about the UK being the best place for Scotland. However, it is clearly the case as your article and the evidence provided shows.

The reason I believe that these self-proclaimed "proud Scots" are so disloyal is because they themselves are power hungry and want to maintain this idea of Britain being a superpower; not to mention the probability that they fancy themselves as being in control of that superpower and/ or perhaps making it into the House of Lords eventually, as a thank you for selling out Scotland.

Says a lot for the insecure mind which wants to overcompensate...

Poor insecure boy from Glasgow wants to make it big as the Scottish Secretary and perhaps be the Prime Minister. He will likely shoot his granny, sleep with his sister and lie through his teeth about how Britain makes Scotland better.

can anyone tell,me when did england ever stand on its own two feet. They appear never to have ever financed their own way in the world. A look through history shows that they have always got their hands on other peoples resources whether natural or human.When you think about it at one time they had the wealth of one third of the planet through their empire, and still they could not manage. I can only presume that if they had access to all the wealth on the earth, they would be hoping that martians existed so that they could iether nick their wealth or borrow from them.the people who govern from that place must be historicaly the worst to have ever done so in any country

Poor insecure boy from Glasgow wants to make it big as the Scottish Secretary and perhaps be the Prime Minister. He will likely shoot his granny, sleep with his sister and lie through his teeth about how Britain makes Scotland better.

I blame the Norman conquest, when the real English were conquered by the Normans. The monarchy later pretended it never happened and kept calling it England. Maybe if they had renamed it Greater Normandy or Normania things would be a lot clearer today.

Of course, that would imply that England actually got beaten and ceased to exist, a lot like Roman Gaul becoming France, which would require just about every English text book to be rewritten.

About a hundred years after Hastings the Normans dragged their new country into Ireland, then back to France, and she has been reliant on foreign exploitation - rather than simple trade - ever since.

The trick with colonialism is to get the people to think it is voluntary, and that they are doing you a favour. In effect, we are willing participants in our own subjugation. Britain held India with very few troops. Most of forces were actually Indians themselves (Sepoys), assigned to police other Indians of different languages or religions.

Divide and rule, it was called. Why do you think Scottish taboids are full of Rangers and Celtic commentary?

It's all a mind game. Once the colony wakes up to what is going on, it's all over.

In spite of their Scottish-sounding names, every single one of the opposition parties in Holyrood is on a very short leash to their London masters.

That’s the problem.

Don’t think for a minute that the UK committee making a contrary finding to the Holyrood opposition parties shows that their Scottish subsidiaries acted independently. The Labour-dominated committee at Westminster was simply forced to acknowledge what the evidence proves – that minimum pricing works.

They could ignore this in Scotland with its compliant press, but the criticism of the UK press on this matter in the run-up to an election would have been devastating.

If any so-called Scottish opposition party actually thought for itself instead of simply following London’s orders, Scotland might actually have a half-decent opposition, instead of the unquestioning pack of Unionist drones we have today.

They have cooperated with the SNP Government in the past. Why oppose minimum pricing on alcohol? A half-witted five-year old could see through the arguments they raised against the policy. They’re afraid the urban poor might sober up long enough see that Labour has a stake in them staying on benefit.

Why did the Tories oppose the bill? That was the real eye-opener. They’ve obviously woken up to the fact that Labour’s benefit-dependent heartland is what’s keeping Scotland in the Union.

Still don't get the alcohal thingy. I understand that weather is a player but that simply means we should change the weather.

The argument that you make is that it works. Maybe so but at what cost. I mean the nazi concentration camps were effective and so was Guilliani in New York but the price was human and civil rights..

I just don't see why the government should be interfering in the market and people's drinking behaviour. I want the government to do what it's best at - health, education and regulating the market. I don't want it imposing values on my consumption habits. The more the government gets involved in the market in this way the more it can be manipulated by big business. We should be keeping government out of our lives as much as possible. I've lived in Russia and I hate the fact that Britain is full of cctv cameras and the like. The idea that big brother knows best is anethema to me as a Scot. I think we've just become accustomed to this kind of thing by the tabloids.

Another thing is that this is aimed at the poor. I hate seeing the poor being stigmatised and told how to behave by the middle-class or 'educated elite'. It really sticks in my gullet that the poor and weakest are political targets. The poor will only make better choices when there is a fairer distribution of wealth. By making these kind of micro-management arguments we provide a smokescreen for continued elitism and poverty. Fried eggs are bad for you, should we put a minimum price on cooking oil too? I mean what about hanging fat people because they cost the NHS a fortune in heart surgery..

I tried these arguments out on another forum that was hostile to debate and when I dug a little deeper It was obvious that it was all about denigrating the habits of the poor.

I'm not saying this is what your doing as I think your blog is excellent and intelligent. I just think in this case I would like to hear a thoroughly compelling argument for allowing the government to interfere with what I want to eat and drink..

To put this in a Lockian individual-rights context when the country that produced Locke went on to colonize half the world does not wash. The colonial relationship changes everything, and must be ended. To talk of universal rights when our swathes of Scots are reduced to Labour-voting, welfare-claiming drones is …I struggle for a word that is not too strong…unacceptable.

You sound educated. I expect along the way you have learned some self-discipline. I would think that you would know about the effects on alcohol on your health and limit your consumption, not because of the price, but because you want to maintain control, usually have plans for the next day and don’t want to write yourself off. To extend your own self-discipline to those without your education, background, experience, and let us not forget, job, is a highly dubious argument.

I am not advocating treating people like children, but keeping people on benefit is to do just that.

The argument that you make is that it works.

My argument is not simply that it works, but that it is worthwhile and necessary. This eliminates your death camps comparison. I can’t comment on New York policing methods.

I’m not advocating prohibition, simply that alcohol is sold at sane prices, preferably in a controlled in a controlled environment, to reduce consumption. It’s a drug. It impairs our judgement. It makes us argumentative and aggressive. The A&E wards on a weekend are testament to that. You mention health. This is first and foremost a health issue. And what about the civil rights of those attacked by drunks? People are sick and tired of their town centres being no-go zones on weekends.

I just don't see why the government should be interfering in the market …I want the government to do what it's best … regulating the market.

About welfare-drones etc. I think that the pyschology of big brother knows best is the most crucial aspect of denying a say to said masses. People must think for themselves and so breaking this psychology of consumer economy a la Edward Bernays is the most important step in that direction.

As for self-discipline. I grew up in a peripheral Glasgow housing scheme which was a fuqing ghetto. My father was an alcohalic and I've seen the disaster that booze brings to family life and social settings close up and unbelievably ugly. I've also seen how self-discipline worsened as Thatcher's policies kicked in and how Labour politicians pork-barrelled whilst pretending to stand up for 'workers'. I've seen tell people how to think and brow-beat people at union meetings while giving up workers' rights. People have to find their democratic voice. And I just can't stand the idea of the SNP going around telling the people what's best for them. Really, improve their economy, get rid of the parasites and let people flourish - self-discipline comes from being able to use your brain. Cognitive skills are disrupted by poverty. Poverty and redistribution is the answer not 'big-brother'. And when you set precedents you invite more moralising. Recently we've seen proposals to put cctv cameras into people's houses to make sure they stick to behaviour orders.

The death camps point is that it is not enough to say that something works but that it is the right thing to do. Guilliani made the streets of new york safe and so you might argue that it was a 'worthwhile and necessary' measure but it was at an appalling cost to civil liberties. Who decides what is worthwhile? The nazis thought the camps were because they solved what they deemed to be a 'problem'.

I know that alcohal causes fights and yes I've been to a&e and seen it. In Scotland there is a lot of aggression and Glasgow is perhaps the most violent city in the EU. Isn't that about economic pressure? And maybe people feel crap because their culture has been emasculated (see alcohalism in native American Indian and Aboriginal communities). People use violence so that they can unleash their frustrations - that will simply be transferred and possibly driven into back streets and homes.

About the market. It's simply supply and demand - people are poor and want to get drunk to forget stuff and supply finds its way to that demand. I'm sure you can reduce intake of booze but does it get transferred to more dangerous forms of getting high?

As for health. The NHS reacts mostly - it doesn't really get involved in preventative treatments like in the East. Fair enough: people can live healthy lives if the can listen, afford better products etc. If not they get treated for liver problems or whatever. Same with fat people - they get treated for heart problems so should we have minimum prices on donuts too? Plus, we need to empower little shops who spend money in their own community to stand up to supermarkets. The latter suck the life-blood out of communities..

I see all this as a a big symptom. Focusing on symptoms blinds people from causation. Clearly we are looking at a defeated people abusing not just booze but lots of things. They need political change, economic change, a change in culture and so on. The behaviour is a reason for change not a reason to bash the poor because we are afraid of the real monsters like bankers who went to much better schools..

Today I read stories about the police using balloons in the sky to watch people and the terror level has been raised to 'severe' (election soon anyone?) plus in the US the Supreme Court has lifted limitations in corporate political donations arguing that a corporation should be seen as an individual and so should have the right to donate to parties and free speech!

I see the rise of fascism all around me:

"Fascism should more properly be called 'corporatism' because it is the total merging of corporate and state power."

Benito Mussolini

To me we should be watching carefully every encroachment into the lives of people by government. We need to make the people feel powerful and fight big brother. Every precedent set without an extremely good reason further numbs the minds of people who want the government to tell them how to blow their noses.

It seems Orwell was right. We must concentrate on real political change or else we lose all sight of what's right and wrong. I've seen good arguments for this proposal but not, in my mind, invincible ones and I need an invincible one before I'll let government tell me what I should and should not be drinking and after all we've drank cheap booze for a thousand years and more before the state took over much of our lives and survived..

Good debate on here. I wonder if the unpopularity of blogs is down to lack of it. I see blogs which are pro-SNP and not only is it uncomfortable to debate against the party line but against the line of the blogger..

I spoke to a couple of bloggers and was thinking about setting up a comment board. How it would work is that the 'editors' would be bloggers and there would be links from their blogs to the board and back.

My idea is to evolve a pro-Scoland and pro-referendum comment board as well as internation stories that Scots should consider and alternative economics. If you look at www.maxkeiser.com you'll see what I mean. You post up mostly newspaper articles but also vids and put a little commentary to get discussion going. So, a Scotsman article which was obvios propaganda would be put up so that people could take it apart.. If it was co-ordinated well maybe it could steal away commentors from The Scotsman who use theirs to destroy genuine debate. As for quality, I'd be looking at deleting comments by obvious trolls and encouraging good comments.

Very much enjoyed this post. What about adding the obstacles the UK state is putting in the way of Scotland developing its renewable energy sector - eg the grid charging us more to transport electricity, the UK government's under funding of marine power, the decision to make Loughborough and not the Scottish Universities a cenre for specialist funing....there is much more i am sure

I'll look into the renewables thing. I seem to remember something on your blog about it. It sounds like part of a bigger picture to favour the south with investment in industrial research, as I know at least one other industry that is suffering the same way.

Outlander , another excellent post.I agree its colonisation and not occupation, we have to educate the population of its TRUE situation.Might I also point out the population exodus that unionism brought to Scotland, this only stopped with the Devolution vote. BUT as a Libertarian socialist , I am for education and against regulation . Higher alcohol prices are just a tax on the poor and does NOT solve or even address the REAL problem. It will in the long run just make things worse. I agree we have a similar problem as Russia , but that is because we have a similar UNIONIST history, the USSR in Russia's case. Holland and Scandinavia share our climate but do not have these problems and Holland certainly has cheeper beer in the supermarkets without the social damage , they also have coffeeshops that sell marijuana at very reasonable prices as well.... so far the sky has not fallen and the world has not ended in Holland... in fact they have less crime ,and less drug and alcohol problems.FYI Portugal has decrimilised ALL DRUGS since 2001. It has seen massive social benefits .ALL POLITICAL PARTIES ARE AUTHORITARIAN and thus do not attract the brightest and the best ,they attract moths drawn to power and corruption.That's why we see Labour and Tory voting together to keep THIER POWER!!Parliments(UK and Scottish) will never willingly give up any power ,that's why A DIRECT DEMOCRACY INDEPENDANT SCOTLAND is the solution in my opinion.http://cuthulan.wordpress.com/2010/01/14/a-direct-democracy-independant-scotland/

@sm753Small petty points IMHO BUT can you give examples of the benefits of unionism?Economically ,culturally , defensivly I see unionism as a disaster for Scotland.@peter1958Is that British nationalism(unionism) or Scottish nationalism (independence)you are refering too?I find British nationalism the dealier strain of the disease.OR are you suggesting we just disband parliment? Because I could go for that!!OR do you want to give this power to the EU? Or is that also too nationalistic? I know lets just let the UN run the place ,it can't be worse than what we have now!!

Not sure if this is true. Yes, he TRIED to reduce crime by throwing thousands of minor offenders into jail, and the extra police were certainly a contributing factor in crime reduction, but crime figures fell across the whole of the US in the 90s, and they were falling in NY before he took over.

It seems that the reason for this phenomenon was the banning of abortion in the early 70s in the famous Roe vs. Wade case. It led to dramatic falls in the number of kids raised by poor, unwed mothers, and the crimes they went on to commit. This does not justify terminating millions of babies, but it’s almost certainly the reason for the dramatic decline in crime across the US in the 1990s. Giuliani and Clinton only took the credit. Read ‘Freakonomics’ for the analysis behind this.

You talk about the market as if it is some kind of higher power that is always right, and yet a market is by definition a complete fabrication. Consider:

1. Markets conditions are created by laws, taxes, tariffs, subsidies, all of which are set by governments, who then leave the market to operate in exactly the way they want it to.

2. Unregulated markets have been responsible for encouraging unscrupulous corporations to hack off African children’s hands, sell guns to emerging nation govts that can barely feed their own people, and sell heroin to children.

3. England/Britain spend centuries tinkering with the property, marriage, tax and custom laws of Ireland to the point where property ownership in the country had been utterly transformed. Only then, when the peasantry had been turned into a wandering, landless, labour class and the famine hit in the 1840s did London claim that the market had to be left to do its work. Robert Peel tried to help but was defeated in an election. The subsequent Whig Govt sat on its hands and let Ireland starve, leaving it to the mercy of the market their predecessors had created. The policy was repeated almost identically in India a generation later.

So much for ‘free’ markets.

In reality, those who bleat about the need for free markets have almost always been the beneficiaries of formerly unfree market conditions who have achieved their market dominance by protection and wish to maintain their position or gain access to someone else’s emerging market.

Cheap alcohol is a social problem imposed on Scotland by London. We tried to fix it. We were prevented. We know the solution works.

Perhaps once we are independent and have fixed the underlying social problems - the unemployment, lack of leisure facilities, etc - we can do whatever the hell we like to the price of OUR alcohol, but until the social problems are fixed (which we know are caused by our membership of this Union) alcohol will remain a massive blight on our nation's health.

The continuing pillage of Scotland’s oil reserves to prop up the morally and financially bankrupt British State, with not a penny returned to Scotland."

LIE, and I suspect you know it

Really? Ok, tell me when and how London returned ANY of Scotland's oil revenues to Scotland.

By a secret sovereign oil fund put aside for when we are 21?

By Barnett consequentials?

By the salaries individual Scots may have made working on London's M25, London's Channel tunnel, London's Docklands renewal, London's Canary Wharf, or London's Olympics? (all paid for by Scotland's oil money)

By the salaries individual Scots may have made in the London money markets of the 80s, when London miraculously came back to life, riding the wave of Scotland's oil money? Whose money do you think they were playing with?

Funny how even Einstein felt that nationalism was 'infantile', and yet his own people had a right to self-determination, and to exist with dignity and free of foreign interference.

I think it's time we threw the word 'nationalism' in the bin. Its two main meanings in English - the desire to be independent, and rabid patriotism once you are - are almost complete opposites, which clever opponents of the former often play on.

@Alex Porter"Einstein was a zionist who believed in the creation of the state of Israel"

SORRY BUT THAT IS NOT TRUE!!Not only did Einstein disagree with Zionism.Albert Eistein, the renowned scientist, who declined an invitation to become Israel’s second president, rejected the idea that the Jews are God’s chosen people.

“For me the Jewish religion like all others is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions,” he said.

“And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people.”

And he added: “As far as my experience goes, they are no better than other human groups,… I cannot see anything ‘chosen’ about them.”HE ALSO CAMPAIGNED FOR BIROBIDZHANA documentary film, L’Chayim, Comrade Stalin! on Stalin’s creation of the Jewish Autonomous Oblast and its partial settlement by thousands of Russian and Yiddish-speaking Jews was released in 2003. As well as relating the history of the creation of the proposed Jewish homeland, the film features scenes of life in contemporary Birobidzhan and interviews with Jewish residents.

According to the NY Times, Stalin established the city to protect secular Jews

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birobidjan

Far from Jews being forcibly exiled to Birobidjan, there were extensive worldwide efforts to promote this Soviet Jewish homeland project, including ‘Ambidjan’, the American Birobidjan Committee, whose officials included Albert Einstein and the prominent American Jewish author B.Z. Goldberg

Sorry, but I'm afraid it’s true: Einstein was a passionate if nuanced supporter of the creation of the state of Israel. The quotes you use do not dispute this.

He declined the role as Israeli PM because he was not qualified – he felt he did not have a political mind and had no idea how to work with people. In your quotes he was attacking the idea of Jewish racial superiority, which he thought was nonsense.

On the subject of Zionism, he was quite specific:

"We live in a time of intense and perhaps exaggerated nationalism. But my Zionism does not exclude cosmopolitan views. I believe in the actuality of Jewish nationality, and I believe that every Jew has duties towards his co-religionists. The meaning of Zionism is thus many sided. …Through the return of Jews to Palestine, and so to a normal and healthy economic life, Zionism involves a creative fusion, which should enrich mankind at large. But the main point is that Zionism must tend to enhance the dignity and self respect of the Jews in the Diaspora. I have always been annoyed by the undignified assimilationist cravings and strivings which I have observed in so many of my friends. Through the establishment of a Jewish Commonwealth in Palestine, the Jewish people will again be in a position to bring its creative abilities into full play without hindrance. … The rebuilding of Palestine is for us Jews not a mere matter of charity or emigration: it is a problem of paramount importance for the Jewish people."

@ Outlandermmmm....maybe BUTIMHO Einstein was the WWII poster boy.His space ,time relativity thesis smells of plagarism. If I was to hand in a theory without the workings of how I arrived at my conclusions ,it would be disgarded! There are many unsung heroes in Einsteins work. This is also shown as he never managed to make anything of his works ,others took it further,it was beyond Einstein to take it further. He also disbelieved in quantum physics and believed in a stable universe and a universal constant ,even as the evidence piled against him. In Reality he was NOT the man we are led to believe in. He was a WWII poster boy for the powers that be.YES Einstein was seen with powerful Zionists ,as he was seen with many in the corridors of power.BUT IN REALITY Einstein turned down Israel and supportted Birobidjan.(For whatever reason)Einstein disbelieved in religion ,including Judaism and did NOT believe in Jewish supremicy.I believe what I am quoting from is his private feelings what you are quoting from is the public media persona.